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English essay writing is considered to be the most popular academic activity in school, high school, college and university. Professors and teachers are fond of assigning complicated English essay topics to check up students’ knowledge in English. Sometimes students experience difficulties in choosing the most appropriate topic for writing their English essay.

You can find a lot of free English essay topics in the Internet, some of them are interesting and popular. Here’s a list of good essay topics which can be very helpful for your English essay writing:

Beowulf: A True Heroic Epic.

“Brave New World” and World State’s Motto.

“Hamlet is preoccupied with the ethics of revenge”. Discuss this statement.

Contrasting Notions of the Outsider in “The Merchant of Venice” and “Othello”.

How do Macbeth and Lady Macbeth characters develop throughout the play?

Throughout the play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth together demonstrate how ambition can turn a loyal soldier into a bloodthirsty murderer with his scheming and devious wife turning weak and disturbed as ambition slowly destroys her. Macbeth’s ambition to become king of Scotland turn’s him independent and ruthless. “The dead butcher and fiend-like queen”, is an accurate description as this is all they amount to.

At the start of the play Macbeth is a loyal soldier returning from the civil war. The witches tell Macbeth that he will become Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor and King of Scotland. The witch’s prophecies make Macbeth ambitious and tap into pre-existing ambition. Macbeth believes these prophecies as the first of his prophecies has been fulfilled. Afterwards the second prophecy is carried out. Immediately Macbeth thinks of murdering King Duncan so the third of his prophecies will be fulfilled even though he is horrified by the idea.

Lady Macbeth’s greed makes her determined the third prophecy will come true. But believes Macbeth is not capable of murdering Duncan but will provoke him. When Lady Macbeth hears the news that that Duncan is coming to visit she believes it is the ideal opportunity to kill Duncan. Lady Macbeth calls on the spirits of darkness and evil to replace her nurturing and feminine qualities with remorseless cruelty. Macbeth is appalled of the thought of killing his king and can think of many reasons for not going ahead with the murder. Read more…

The theme of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is community, identity, and stability. Each of these three themes represents what a Brave New World society needs to have in order to survive. According to the new world controllers, community is a result of identity and stability, identity is a part of genetic engineering, and stability is what everyone desires to achieve. These themes are represented in the book by the symbolic meaning of the phrase “Children are from bottles” and the hypnotic phrase “Everybody belongs to everybody else” (43). In this society, freedom and individualism is replaced by scientific control and mindless happiness at an unknown cost.

Community refers to the thought of one whole unit. Everyone is connected, by their actions toward each other in every day life, sexual desires, and what they do to remove the feeling of horrible emotions. This false connectedness and its effects can be seen in Bernard, a person who hates what society has become. Bernard is disgusted by the thought of “having anyone” he says, referring to sexual relations with women. Bernard is longing for a sense of individuality which he cannot posses in Brave New World. “He emerged with a self-consciousness intensified to the pitch of agony. He is utterly miserable, and perhaps it is his own fault” (86). Thereby jeopardizing the stability of the community as a whole, near the end, it was decided that he be banished to the Falkland Islands, so that he could not tell anyone else of his individuality. In Brave New World community is upheld and reinforced at any and all costs. Read more…

Characters in fiction and drama are characterized into different categories according to their influence on the plot and their personality. Every character in a poem is unique in their own way. In the poem Beowulf, Beowulf endures many challenges that make his character stand out from the rest. Beowulf is a major character with a dynamic, yet flat personality.

Beowulf is considered the major character because he has the most influence on the plot. He receives the call to Heorot while at home in Geatland when he hears that Grendel is attacking Heorot. Beowulf is considered a hero when he rushes to help the people of Heorot. He sets society for revenge when he tells Hrothgar “It is better for a man to avenge his friend than much mourn.” (1081) When Grendel enters Hrothgar’s home and begins to attack the kinsman of Hygelac. Beowulf shows his heroism when he draws his sword and wounds Grendel in his shoulder making his sinews spring apart and his bone-locks brake. After the killing Beowulf leaves Grendel’s arm in Heorot to represent his victory.

After Beowulf defeats Grendel, Grendel’s mother comes to seek revenge. Grendel’s mother comes into Hrothgar’s home and kills a noble shield warrior named Aeschere. She is able to escape since Beowulf is not there. She cuts off Aeschere’s head and leaves it by the lake just as they did with Grendel’s arm. When Beowulf finds out what happened, he goes to Grendel’s mother’s hall to defend Heorot from her. Before Beowulf left he says, “Think now, renowned son of Healfdene, wise king, now that I am ready for the venture, gold-friend of warriors… Read more…

Tragic dramas have been written and performed for many centuries and throughout this time, they have undergone an evolutionary process, with each successive era of tragic drama deriving directly or indirectly from its predecessors. Scholars believe that the play Othello by William Shakespeare was first published in 1603; approximately at the same time as Shakespeare’s other great tragedies Macbeth, Hamlet and King Lear. After careful analysis of each of these four great tragedies, we can conclude that Shakespeare has maintained a ‘template’ for tragedy throughout these works, more specifically a backbone plot to which he can add different characters and themes to create tragic dramas dealing with entirely different issues. By examining Shakespeare’s template for tragedy, we begin to notice similarities with past templates for tragedy, examples of which include the Aristotle, Seneca and Christian Morality templates. Each of which will be looked at in detail shortly to analyse how they have influenced the production of the play Othello. To relate Othello to the template for Shakespearean tragedy and other older forms of tragedy, firstly we must deconstruct Shakespeare’s template for tragedy and compare the characters and plot lines presented in Othello to those fitting the template. Subsequently we must decide to what extent its components are similar to those seen in other forms of tragedy and hence to what extent previous templates have influenced the creation of Shakespeare’s masterpieces. Read more…

English dissertations can take on many forms; however, the key to clear development of a good English dissertation is careful planning and clear topic coverage. A good English dissertation may seem out of reach due to the sheer magnitude of the project; however, a few simple steps can keep you organized and focused during the process of developing your English dissertation.

Begin by formatting the initial document you wish to use. Every format has specific requirements for page set-up; however, you may be able to get a sample dissertation paper from your college that will already be formatted, as you need. Most often, these samples contain limited amount of words, making them great sources for avoiding the headaches you may have with MSWord formatting. In each section of the sample English dissertation, erase the content of the words by highlighting the selection and typing in your problem statement. Typing in your problem statement will assist you in staying on track during the development of your English dissertation. Read more…

In the novel the “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain, a thirteen-year-old boy named Huck Finn struggles with the reality of slavery and living in the south. Huck lacks education and civilization, but has good instincts and judgment. Although his guardian, Ms. Watson, tries to “civilize” him, he refuses her offer deciding that civilization with all its hypocrisy is not the proper path for him. Huck’s best friend is a boy named Tom, who comes from a wealthy family, but Tom also rejects the rules of civilization. During the novel, Huck travels down river with a runaway slave named Jim, and instead of turning him in, decides to free him. Throughout the trip, Huck believes that he will go to hell for breaking the laws in the South by helping a runaway slave to escape. The southern acceptance of slavery is instilled in his thoughts. Even though Huck believes that aiding Jim is “wrong”, he can clearly see that Jim is a good man after spending time with him, and his wrong in setting him free is actually a “right”. Huck realizes that Jim deserves to be reunited with his family and free. When Huck completes his adventures, he arrives at Tom’s Aunt Sally’s house to live and settle down. Although Huck is happy to join a family where he is cared for, he continues to resist the idea of civilization. Read more…

In Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” the narrator, an anonymous lawyer, describes himself as one who lives a simple and mundane life. According to the narrator, his philosophy on life is that “the easiest way in life is the best way”. He is a man who takes few risks in life and tries to conform to the norm of society. However, after hiring a new scrivener, Bartleby, the narrator finds himself pulled into an existence of confusion and conflict.

The protagonist informs us that for thirty some odd years he has maintained a descent business preparing documents for the wealthy. He also makes it known that he stays away from the court room because he is not ambitious and he is known to be extremely safe. By the narrator’s own admission he knows very little about his employees; he knows only what he sees at the office. Turkey, one of the narrator’s law copyists, is productive in the morning and drunk in the afternoon. Read more…

The language of politics is one that is universal to all languages. In 1948, George Orwell published an essay entitled Politics and the English Language, which discussed just that. In paragraph 21 of this essay, he claims, “political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidarity to pure wind.” This is absolutely right, it was in Orwell’s time, and it still holds true today, in a time of mass media, corporate influence, and colossal magnitudes of sensationalism. I plan to explain what Orwell meant by “political language” and show how those who misuse it to their advantage can get away with blatantly lying, yet still amassing support of the misled.

Right at the beginning of his essay, Orwell claims civilization to be decadent and therein infers that civilization’s language must be decadent as well. This is an interesting point that I did not agree with until I finished the reading. Orwell then goes on to explain, “The decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes,” which is definitely true. Keep in mind that his essay was written in 1946, shortly after World War II had ended, so he is speaking from a time where nearly everyone in the world knew of society’s evils. In addition, throughout the essay, Orwell uses exceptionally strong expressions to describe the current state of the English language by using the analogy of a downtrodden individual succumbing to alcoholism, and then referring to the “slovenliness” of Modern English, explicitly written English… However, Orwell also claims that this same slovenliness of the English language can be reversed…Read more…

Frank Conroy and William Maxwell show exceptional examples of what childhood friendships may have consisted of many years ago. Within Passage I, Frank Conroy displays how a relationship can be formed between two people who have just meet and yet still have the deep relationship that is usually only acquired by people who have had a relationship for many years. William Maxwell explains how a simple playmate can be even more significant than ever thought to be. No matter how silent the playmate is or how ironic the circumstances of their meeting, relationships will grow. Both Passages are prime examples of true friendship.

Childhood relationships seem to be very insignificant to adults. However, to children, their youngest friendships may be their most important friendships that they will always remember. Passage I, in first person point of view, shows how tranquil young child’s friendship may be through symbolism. This peacefulness is shown when Frank Conroy writes, “Above, the fat white clouds drifted in the blue. Great sedate clouds, rich and peaceful. We lay on our backs watching them, getting dizzy as they slipped along behind the branches, as if our tree was falling.” This quote symbolizes how the two boys friendship is so perfect and so peaceful that it’s just like the lightly rolling silent clouds that passed above them. The boy’s friendship was so beautiful because they required no spoken words to know how good of friends they were. They boys would spend a lot of time together, just in silence. A simile found within Passage I further displays how they could just lay there and be perfectly content with it, “hour after hour our bodies fell like bundles into the softened sand.” Along with Frank Conroy in Passage I, William Maxwell also displays the same qualities in Passage II. Read more…